Stolen Guns: By the Numbers

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has a new report on the theft of firearms during burglaries and other property crimes from 2005 through 2010.

The highlights:

About 1.4 million guns, or an annual average of 232,400, were stolen during burglaries and other property crimes in the six-year period from 2005 through 2010.

On average, firearms were stolen in an annual average of about 4% of the 2.4 million burglaries occurring each year, in 2% of the 529,200 robberies, and in less than 1% of the 13.6 million other crimes involving theft from 2005 through 2010.

From 2005 through 2010, 86% of burglaries and 75% of other property crimes involving a stolen firearm were reported to police.

The number of firearms stolen declined since between 1994 and 2010, but there was virtually no change in the percentage of crimes involving gun thefts.

“This may suggest that the overall decline in the number of victimizations involving gun theft was not due to a decline in the number of privately owned guns that could be stolen,” the report says.

According to Gallup polls cited in the report, the percentage of households with guns on the property declined from 54% in December 1993 to 41% in October 2010.

Three out of four crimes involving firearm theft occurred in households headed by white non-Hispanic persons, the report says. The majority of household burglaries (56%) or other property crimes (59%) involving stolen firearms occurred in the South.

In the period covered, household property crimes involving only stolen firearms resulted in the loss of about $27 million per year.

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